2/14/2011

Born in Nagoya, but his parents moved to Kumamoto when he was three.In 1926 he joined the haiku group HototogisuIn 1930 he moved to Tokyo.In 1933 he became a member of the poetry group Ashibi 馬酔木, but he left in 1935.

He studied haiku with Mizuhara Shuoshi since 1930 and became a member of the Shinko Haiku movement 新興俳句運動.

He spent some time in the war in Manschuria.

After the war, he did not write so many haiku, but kept the free spirit of a poet.

大岡 信 Ooka Makoto's commentary about this haiku(translated by Beichman):

[Published in] 'Shiroi Natsuno', 1936.The first character would be read as 'zu' if the 5-7-5 structure of haiku were observed, and some critics do so; but the author himself has said that he reads it as 'atama'. The poem's center is in the image "white summer field" and reading the first character with the Chinese reading of 'zu' would have given the first word an undesirable heaviness.

Sooshuu was a favorite disciple of Mizuhara Shuoshi. In 1932, when he composed this poem, it opened new possibilities for the young haiku poets who were trying to reconstruct the haiku by departing from objective realism and natural description. In this sense, the poem has historical significance; it was widely discussed as one of Soshu's most important early works.